


trick or treat

by dreamingbirds



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Gen, Halloween, ambiguous ending, they're KIDS, treebros if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 23:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14389464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingbirds/pseuds/dreamingbirds
Summary: “Okay, one last photo!” Evan’s mom said, holding the camera up to her face. Evan squinted as it flashed, screwing up his face against the brightness. His mom laughed and put the camera down. “All right, Ev. Let’s go.”“Yeah!” He grabbed the plastic orange bucket as his feet and raced for the front door. His mom followed close behind, letting him outside and locking the door behind them. She bent down to adjust the sign on the bowl of candy on their doorstep that read please take one before taking Evan’s hand and leading them down the steps to the street.





	trick or treat

“Okay, one last photo!” Evan’s mom said, holding the camera up to her face. Evan squinted as it flashed, screwing up his face against the brightness. His mom laughed and put the camera down. “All right, Ev. Let’s go.”

“Yeah!” He grabbed the plastic orange bucket as his feet and raced for the front door. His mom followed close behind, letting him outside and locking the door behind them. She bent down to adjust the sign on the bowl of candy on their doorstep that read please take one before taking Evan’s hand and leading them down the steps to the street.

“So where do you want to go first?” she asked. 

“This way!” Evan pointed to their left, the plastic claws attached to his hands making the movement much more dramatic. They started down the sidewalk, Evan regaling his mom with stories about Wolverine and his exploits with the other X-Men. 

At the first house they reached, Evan began to pull his mom up the walk, but she stopped, letting go of his hand instead. “You can do this on your own, Ev.”

“What? No! It’s scary!” Evan insisted.

“Come on, sweetheart. Wolverine wouldn’t be scared, would he?‘

Evan bit his lip and turned away, trudging up the walk alone, hunching his shoulders in his yellow and blue costume and gripping the handle of his candy basket a little tighter. Wolverine wouldn’t be scared, he repeated to himself, trying to force back his nervousness. He reached up and pressed the doorbell, listening to it echo and half-hoping no one would answer the door.

His prayers went unanswered, however, because it swung open to reveal a smiling woman holding a huge bowl full of candy. “Well, hello there, sweetie!” she said, holding out the bowl. “Take one, please! And have a wonderful night!”

Evan grabbed a piece of candy and mumbled a quick thank you before practically leaping off of the porch and running back to his mom. He felt a little silly as his mom gave him a hug and told him she was proud of him, but the thunk that the candy bar made as it hit the bottom of his plastic bucket was almost as sweet as the sugar in it. Evan looked up at his mom, pushed a smile onto his face, and said, “Let’s go get more!”

His mom made him go up to the door on his own each time, and each time it got a little less scary. They skipped all of the lavishly decorated houses with moving plastic monsters in the front yard that groaned and shrieked, choosing to go to the quieter, more normal-looking places.

The pair had only made it a few blocks before it started getting really crowded. Kids and their parents started to pour out onto the streets, laughing and chattering and munching on candy. Evan kept a little closer to his mom’s side, but shook his head when she asked if he wanted to go home. 

A few minutes later, Evan’s mom ran into one of her friends, and Evan was left to watch the trick-or-treaters around him as his mom struck up a conversation a few feet away. He noticed a little girl who was probably a year younger than him run past, dressed in a poofy pink dress and giggling madly. Her mom was giving chase, yelling, “Zoe! Come back here!” The girl, who Evan guessed was named Zoe, did not obey, and quickly vanished into the crowd. Her mom shook her head, sighing loudly, and said something to the boy at her side, who Evan had not noticed until then but who was dressed in a blue and red Spider-Man costume. The boy nodded, and his mom left to chase after his sister. 

The boy watched his mom disappear before turning around and noticing Evan, who turned pink and tried to avert his eyes.

“Hey! Hi!” the other boy said, and Evan looked back to see him walking closer. “You’re dressed as Wolverine, right?”

“Um. Yeah,” Evan responded. “He’s... do you know him?”

The other boy grinned widely, showing off a missing front tooth. “Of course I know him! He’s, like, the third-coolest superhero. After Spider-Man, obviously. And probably Iron Man.”

Evan crossed his arms over his chest, which was no small feat with his plastic claws and already half-full candy basket. “Y-yeah, right. Wolverine is obviously the best.”

“Pfft, no he’s not. Spider-Man is way cooler. He can shoot webs and swing around between buildings!”

“Yeah, but Wolverine is super strong! Plus, he has claws so no one can ever hurt him.” Evan’s voice wobbled a little on the last word, but he kept his chin up. The other boy didn’t seem to notice, instead pulling off his mask to reveal a head full of tousled brown hair, bright blue eyes, and a narrow, mischievous face. 

“You’re cool. I like you,” the other boy said. Evan was a little taken aback by his abruptness, but per the code of little boys, only nodded solemnly and held out his hand to shake. The other boy took it firmly, his hand warm through his glove. Evan pulled off his mask as well, the back of his neck sweaty from the cheap polyester.

“D’you want to go trick-or-treating with me?” the other boy asked. “My mom’s trying to find my sister Zoe, but she probably won’t be back for a while. Zoe’s really good at hiding.”

“I have to ask my mom,” Evan said. He ran over to her, tugging on her shirt to interrupt her conversation. She leaned down, and he said, “Mom, can I go trick-or-treating with that boy over there? He’s really nice and he likes Wolverine too. We’ll be careful.”

His mom nodded, saying, “Don’t go more than two blocks, and meet me right back here when you’re done. If something goes wrong, just ask an adult if you can call me.”

Evan returned her nod and trotted back to the other boy, telling him that they could go. The boy grabbed his arm excitedly, but when Evan flinched, he let go quickly. “Sorry,” he said. Evan shook his head. “No, it’s okay.” He offered his arm, and the other boy took it again, more gently.

They set off down the street, talking excitedly and gesturing wildly. Evan learned that the other boy was completely fearless, bounding up porch stairs two at a time and saying “Trick or treat!” loudly whenever the door was opened. Evan hung back, watching wide-eyed, but the other boy pulled him along, hanging on to his hand as they wove through the crowds. 

When they reached the end of the block, they stopped in front of a huge house lit up with eerie green light that was distorted by the fog pouring from fog machines. Staticky cackling echoed through the air, and dark figures shuddered and shook in the shadows.

Evan immediately shrank backwards, releasing the other boy’s hand in his haste to stay away. The other boy turned around with a worried expression. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. It’s just, um, kinda... a little-” He didn’t want to admit his fear in front of his new friend, but the boy seemed to understand.

“It’s okay. If you don’t want to, we don’t have to go in.” 

Evan took a deep breath. Wolverine wouldn’t be scared. “No. L-let’s go.”

The boy grinned so hugely Evan thought for sure his face would split open. “Awesome! Don’t worry, I can protect you if we’re attacked by ghosts. I can punch them in the face.”

“I don’t think you can punch a ghost,” Evan said, smiling in spite of himself. The boy just laughed and held out his hand for Evan. He took it, and together they walked in the gate.

The path was long and surrounded by shadowy bushes. Evan kept close to his new friend, whose face was turned resolutely forward. The green lights made all of the shadows that much bigger, and when a shape leaned suddenly out from behind a bush Evan nearly shrieked. He stifled it at the last second, and it came out as a choked whimper. The other boy squeezed their linked hands reassuringly, and led Evan up to the front door, which was surrounded by fake spiderwebs. He pushed the doorbell, which played a short tune, and together they waited for the door to open, Evan trying desperately to calm his frantic heartbeat.

Finally the door creaked open, blinding Evan briefly with light before it was blotted out by a horrible figure with rotting flesh and blood dripping from its face. Evan squeaked and hid behind the other boy, who stood up as tall as he could to provide a barrier for Evan. 

“Trick or treat!” the boy said boldly, and the zombie in the doorframe smiled gruesomely and poured a handful of candy into the boy’s basket. 

“Nice Spider-Man costume, kiddo. And is that Wolverine behind you?” the zombie asked in a surprisingly normal-sounding voice. Evan peeked over the boy’s shoulder and found that the zombie was a lot less scary with his friend standing in between them.

“H-hi,” Evan stuttered. 

“Hold out your hand,” the boy whispered, and after a moment’s deliberation, Evan did so, moving so that he was only halfway guarded by his friend. The zombie dumped a handful of candy in Evan’s open palm, wished them a happy Halloween, and shut the door.

Evan ran back to the sidewalk as fast as he could, gasping for fresh air. The boy ran up behind him a second later, already laughing. “That was so crazy!” he said, his blue eyes sparkling in the dim light. Evan took a deep, shaky breath, and then burst out laughing as well.

They were still giggling when they went back to meet Evan’s mom a few minutes later, arm in arm, their full candy buckets swinging in their hands. She smiled when she saw them, and was about to say something when a harried-looking woman ran up with a grumpy princess in tow.

“There you are!” the woman, who Evan recognised as the boy’s mother, said. “I was worried about you! Come on, let’s go home.” Turning to Evan’s mom, she said, “Thanks for keeping an eye on this little rascal.”

“No problem,” Evan’s mom responded. “Good luck with the little ones.”

The boy’s mom gave him an impatient come on, let’s go gesture, and the boy flung his arms around Evan, hugging him tightly. Evan reached up to hold on, but the hug ended just as quickly as it had begun as the boy pulled back to say, “Thanks for going with me. It was really fun.” He ran back to his mom and sister, and they left with a final wave. Evan watched them vanish into the thinning crowd, and wished he had asked the boy where he went to school or how to reach him.

“Who was that, sweetie?” Evan’s mom asked.

“I dunno,” Evan said. “He was really awesome, though.” A feeling sort of like loss and sort of like sadness and little like numbness tugged at the corners of his mind, as if he had missed something big when the brown-haired boy had walked away, but he didn’t know what it was. 

“Should we go home? You’re probably pretty tired,” Evan’s mom said, and the feeling began to dissipate until Evan wasn’t sure it had been there in the first place.

“Yeah,” he said, grabbing her hand. “Let’s go home.”

 

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Connor, who was that boy? Is he in your class?” Connor’s mom asked, holding onto Zoe’s hand so she wouldn’t run away again.

He shook his head. “I’ve never met him before.”

“Well, he seemed nice,” his mom said, her attention already on Zoe, who was tugging on her hand and whining about something.

“He was,” Connor said, mostly to empty air, thinking about the blue-eyed boy with messy hair and a big nervous smile. He almost felt like he had forgotten something... but something that hadn’t happened yet.

He shrugged off the strange feeling, dismissing it to the back of his mind. Maybe I’ll meet him again someday, he thought, glancing over his shoulder behind him, but the boy was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> i have no idea what i'm doing
> 
> characters are not mine, i own nothing but the bad grammar


End file.
